8 ms·

The grim truth behind the Pied Piper (2020)

109 points by Anon84 1y ago

bogzz 1y ago
Their CTO is a Satanist.
- jack_tripper 1y ago
  Nice chain Dinesh
  - wpasc 1y ago
    not height per se, but d2f
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- bambax 1y ago
  I too read the title and thought it would be about the show. It's not, unfortunately.
throw23748923 1y ago
What's the chance this event happened as recorded in popular memory? The inscription dates to 1284, but the earliest mention according to the article is 1384, 100 years later. On a symbolic day no less. The plaque, where 1284 is inscribed, is on a house dating to the 1500s. It seems much more plausible that e.g. children emigrated as adults to another region (as mentioned in the article) and the old-timers who stayed behind lamented the 'loss of their children' so to speak; when the history was recorded in town records, it's unlikely that any of these old-timers or children were around. Hundreds of years of historical layering, where the most interesting version of the story is the one that is reinforced likely explains the mythological nature of the tale. But what do I know? I suppose it is curious.
- jvanderbot 1y ago
  Combining all the elements, a foreigner-led emigration of adult / young adults en masse because of a rat/disease/sanitation problem seems just fine as an explanation.
  - evolve2k 1y ago
    While the mystery of the story has always been attractive the maybe more obvious moral truth within the tale is part of its enduring nature. In short the town screws the piper for his work with the rats, in what looks to be an act of greed and arrogance by the town leaders, likley even having done this before (tales of exploited contractors are easy to find even to this day). But the moral was in the way the piper responded, shockingly and surprisingly taking off with (per the plaque) some 130 children at midsommer no less. It’s a little abstracted here as the article doesn’t start with the legend (of course cause it’s so famous); but I think the historical reframe to draw from this is that after not being paid for his work removing rats he “takes payment” by recruiting 130 children and taking them to settle new lands (being paid then for the provision of the children to the settlors). I think for those interested in the histories, it somewhat solves the mystery and clarifies how the piper was paid in the end. The beauty of the narrative and the core moral of the story remain. And likely this story is still relevant for us today. Make good on your promises especially around payment lest the other party takes payment in other ways, with possible costs that you never first considered.
    - zeristor 1y ago
      One key point, could one lure rats away by playing on a flute? I mean if you could it would be handy to automate it in large cities even today, no toxic poisons. I’m not sure what evidence there is for that part of the story. It could be a tale as others have posted as to why the town lost so many children.
- cubefox 1y ago
  100 years isn't that long though. Enough to transmit an exact date to multiple people. Also, the oldest surviving record isn't necessarily the earliest record there ever was.
DonHopkins 1y ago
The OctoPipers of PiperNet - Silicon Valley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-l6btZcJ54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-l6btZcJ54
tetris11 1y ago
The Wikipedia article has actual information instead of the storytelling that the BBC article is insisting on > Udolph favours the hypothesis that the Hamelin youths wound up in what is now Poland.[40] Genealogist Dick Eastman cited Udolph's research on Hamelin surnames that have shown up in Polish phonebooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin Also, every town in Southern Germany looks like that. Hamelin is nothing special in that respect
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- flobosg 1y ago
  Hamelin is located in Lower Saxony, not in the southern states.
  - beeforpork 1y ago
    And there, many cities look like that, too. It's all about the angle. I am sure that just outside of the camera frame, there's a mobile phone shop, a Burger King or MacDonald's, and other trivially universal city commerce. :-) Let's see... https://maps.app.goo.gl/hbRSXaDvfKNFmQtT6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/hbRSXaDvfKNFmQtT6 No, but there's Rossmann, Kik, Döner, and Woolworth's.
    - flobosg 1y ago
      The point I was addressing from the parent comment was the implication that Hamelin is located in southern Germany. It could be rewritten to, as you pointed out: > Also, every town in Germany looks like that.
      - beeforpork 1y ago
        Yes, I know. I was trying to stress exactly that.
- b2ccb2 1y ago
willvarfar 1y ago
I'd always imagined the "pied piper" as being 'pied' as in patched or even checkerboard of black and white. A piebald pony is patches of black or white, for example. Is it that 'pied' is or was less specific and can mean patches of any colour, or is it that the English name is a bit lost in translation?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Grumbledour 1y ago
  It's "Rattenfänger von Hameln" in german, so the literal translation would be "Rat-Catcher of Hamelin". I do remember him wearing brightly colored patchwork clothing in the stories, but I could not say if that was an integral part of the original fable or just added in retellings to make the character stand out more as a mysterious stranger.
  - b2ccb2 1y ago
    Here is a picture on Wikipedia. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattenf%C3%A4nger_von_Hameln#/media/Datei:Rattenf%C3%A4nger_Stadtf%C3%BChrung_Hameln.jpg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattenf%C3%A4nger_von_Hameln#/... I grew up around Hameln and can confirm, that is how he is depicted. Also a depiction of him from 1592: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattenf%C3%A4nger_von_Hameln#/media/Datei:Pied_piper.jpg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattenf%C3%A4nger_von_Hameln#/... So it is part of the fable.
    - IncreasePosts 1y ago
      Was that kind of garb common back then? Reminds me of Swiss guard uniforms(granted, developed in the early 20th c, but based off 16th century imagery)
      - b2ccb2 1y ago
        Not sure, the costume reminds me of a jester. If I'd take a jab at it, here is the original transcription from Brüder Grimm: "Im Jahr 1284 ließ sich zu Hameln ein wunderlicher Mann sehen. Er hatte einen Rock von vielfarbigem, bunten Tuch an, weshalben er Bundting soll geheißen haben, und gab sich für einen Rattenfänger aus…"[0][1] "In the year 1284, a strange man appeared in Hameln. He had a skirt, made from differently colored fabrics, which is why his name was 'bundle(?)', pretending to be a rat catcher…" [0] https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Seite:Deutsche_Sagen_(Grimm)_V1_367.jpg https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Seite:Deutsche_Sagen_(Grimm)_... [1] https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Seite:Deutsche_Sagen_(Grimm)_V1_368.jpg https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Seite:Deutsche_Sagen_(Grimm)_...
dang 1y ago
Discussed at the time (of the article): The grim truth behind the Pied Piper - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24450760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24450760 - Sept 2020 (23 comments)
- iammjm 1y ago
  So what? Like if something was posted years before should it never be posted ever again? We are talking 5 years here, and the information hasn’t become deprecated or outdated
  - CrazyStat 1y ago
    People might be interested to see what was said last time.
  - ishouldbework 1y ago
    I do not believe that is dang's point. He often posts comments like these under recurring posts, I assume in hope that the past discussions could also be of interest to the readers.
    - iammjm 1y ago
      I see! my bad
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - mellosouls 1y ago
    Its very normal on HN to point to earlier discussions on the same article or subject and is normally intended as help rather than a complaint.
  - dang 1y ago
    Not at all! As the other commenters have pointed out, no criticism is implied. Reposts are fine after a year or so. This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. It's just that readers are often curious to look at past discussions. Sometimes I point that out: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20related%20readers&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
ekaryotic 1y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
nathias 1y ago
> But most people recognise him for what he is, the Pied Piper incarnate I hope this AI generated
- mellosouls 1y ago
  2020 so unlikely
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
TMEHpodcast 1y ago
Initially read the headline and thinking it would be about a certain TV show about Silicon Valley. Not disappointed
- czbond 1y ago
  I recently got into the show "Silicon Valley" after never making it past season 1. Really loving it..... and thought this was the Pied Piper company too.
analog8374 1y ago
It makes you wonder how many modern facts are just a popularized copy of a copy of a copy, mangled beyond all realness.
- Ylpertnodi 1y ago
  Please leave AI out of this.
neilv 1y ago
Jared gentle deadpan from "Silicon Valley": > Well, I looked it up. It's about a predatory flautist who murders children in a cave. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ70b-WRHlU&t=18s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ70b-WRHlU&t=18s
mmaunder 1y ago
"And, in fact, one 13th Century outbreak – a literal form of dance fever – occurred south of Hamelin, in the town of Erfurt, where a group of youths were documented as wildly gyrating as they travelled out of town, ending up 20km away in a neighbouring town. Some of the children, one chronicle suggests, expired shortly thereafter, having flat-out danced themselves to death, and those who survived were left with chronic tremors. Perhaps, some theorise, Hamelin witnessed a similar plague, dancing to the figurative tune of the Piper." Early discovery of MDMA.
- entropicdrifter 1y ago
  Could have been ergot fungus in the wheat
yard2010 1y ago
Can we talk about the dance pandemic of 1518? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518 Is this when they invented the Harlem Shake?
senderista 1y ago
> Perhaps the Piper, emblematic of a pagan shaman, playing his flute, was leading the youth of Hamelin to their midsummer festivities when the local Christian faction, hoping to cement conversion of the region, waylaid and massacred the group. This passage doesn't make much sense to me, given that Saxony had been converted around 800 CE. What could "local Christian faction" even mean when everyone was (nominally) Christian?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
20251105 1y ago
There was an actual pied piper, there were 130 actual children and they really did went missing on June 26, 1284. Landslide or sinkhole in one of the koppen (hills) around Hamelin. The remains of all of those people are probably still there, buried. It is a literal account of a real life tragedy.
hulitu 1y ago
> Ultimately, then, the Piper didn’t just fracture a community. He also, in the end, brought a larger one together. A propaganda phrase that ruins the end of the article.

109 points by Anon84 1y ago

bogzz 1y ago

Their CTO is a Satanist.

jack_tripper 1y ago
Nice chain Dinesh
- wpasc 1y ago
  not height per se, but d2f
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
bambax 1y ago
I too read the title and thought it would be about the show. It's not, unfortunately.

throw23748923 1y ago

What's the chance this event happened as recorded in popular memory? The inscription dates to 1284, but the earliest mention according to the article is 1384, 100 years later. On a symbolic day no less. The plaque, where 1284 is inscribed, is on a house dating to the 1500s. It seems much more plausible that e.g. children emigrated as adults to another region (as mentioned in the article) and the old-timers who stayed behind lamented the 'loss of their children' so to speak; when the history was recorded in town records, it's unlikely that any of these old-timers or children were around. Hundreds of years of historical layering, where the most interesting version of the story is the one that is reinforced likely explains the mythological nature of the tale. But what do I know? I suppose it is curious.

jvanderbot 1y ago
Combining all the elements, a foreigner-led emigration of adult / young adults en masse because of a rat/disease/sanitation problem seems just fine as an explanation.
- evolve2k 1y ago
  While the mystery of the story has always been attractive the maybe more obvious moral truth within the tale is part of its enduring nature. In short the town screws the piper for his work with the rats, in what looks to be an act of greed and arrogance by the town leaders, likley even having done this before (tales of exploited contractors are easy to find even to this day). But the moral was in the way the piper responded, shockingly and surprisingly taking off with (per the plaque) some 130 children at midsommer no less. It’s a little abstracted here as the article doesn’t start with the legend (of course cause it’s so famous); but I think the historical reframe to draw from this is that after not being paid for his work removing rats he “takes payment” by recruiting 130 children and taking them to settle new lands (being paid then for the provision of the children to the settlors). I think for those interested in the histories, it somewhat solves the mystery and clarifies how the piper was paid in the end. The beauty of the narrative and the core moral of the story remain. And likely this story is still relevant for us today. Make good on your promises especially around payment lest the other party takes payment in other ways, with possible costs that you never first considered.
  - zeristor 1y ago
    One key point, could one lure rats away by playing on a flute? I mean if you could it would be handy to automate it in large cities even today, no toxic poisons. I’m not sure what evidence there is for that part of the story. It could be a tale as others have posted as to why the town lost so many children.
cubefox 1y ago
100 years isn't that long though. Enough to transmit an exact date to multiple people. Also, the oldest surviving record isn't necessarily the earliest record there ever was.

DonHopkins 1y ago

The OctoPipers of PiperNet - Silicon Valley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-l6btZcJ54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-l6btZcJ54

tetris11 1y ago

The Wikipedia article has actual information instead of the storytelling that the BBC article is insisting on > Udolph favours the hypothesis that the Hamelin youths wound up in what is now Poland.[40] Genealogist Dick Eastman cited Udolph's research on Hamelin surnames that have shown up in Polish phonebooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin Also, every town in Southern Germany looks like that. Hamelin is nothing special in that respect

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
flobosg 1y ago
Hamelin is located in Lower Saxony, not in the southern states.
- beeforpork 1y ago
  And there, many cities look like that, too. It's all about the angle. I am sure that just outside of the camera frame, there's a mobile phone shop, a Burger King or MacDonald's, and other trivially universal city commerce. :-) Let's see... https://maps.app.goo.gl/hbRSXaDvfKNFmQtT6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/hbRSXaDvfKNFmQtT6 No, but there's Rossmann, Kik, Döner, and Woolworth's.
  - flobosg 1y ago
    The point I was addressing from the parent comment was the implication that Hamelin is located in southern Germany. It could be rewritten to, as you pointed out: > Also, every town in Germany looks like that.
    - beeforpork 1y ago
      Yes, I know. I was trying to stress exactly that.
b2ccb2 1y ago

willvarfar 1y ago

I'd always imagined the "pied piper" as being 'pied' as in patched or even checkerboard of black and white. A piebald pony is patches of black or white, for example. Is it that 'pied' is or was less specific and can mean patches of any colour, or is it that the English name is a bit lost in translation?

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Grumbledour 1y ago
It's "Rattenfänger von Hameln" in german, so the literal translation would be "Rat-Catcher of Hamelin". I do remember him wearing brightly colored patchwork clothing in the stories, but I could not say if that was an integral part of the original fable or just added in retellings to make the character stand out more as a mysterious stranger.
- b2ccb2 1y ago
  Here is a picture on Wikipedia. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattenf%C3%A4nger_von_Hameln#/media/Datei:Rattenf%C3%A4nger_Stadtf%C3%BChrung_Hameln.jpg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattenf%C3%A4nger_von_Hameln#/... I grew up around Hameln and can confirm, that is how he is depicted. Also a depiction of him from 1592: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattenf%C3%A4nger_von_Hameln#/media/Datei:Pied_piper.jpg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattenf%C3%A4nger_von_Hameln#/... So it is part of the fable.
  - IncreasePosts 1y ago
    Was that kind of garb common back then? Reminds me of Swiss guard uniforms(granted, developed in the early 20th c, but based off 16th century imagery)
    - b2ccb2 1y ago
      Not sure, the costume reminds me of a jester. If I'd take a jab at it, here is the original transcription from Brüder Grimm: "Im Jahr 1284 ließ sich zu Hameln ein wunderlicher Mann sehen. Er hatte einen Rock von vielfarbigem, bunten Tuch an, weshalben er Bundting soll geheißen haben, und gab sich für einen Rattenfänger aus…"[0][1] "In the year 1284, a strange man appeared in Hameln. He had a skirt, made from differently colored fabrics, which is why his name was 'bundle(?)', pretending to be a rat catcher…" [0] https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Seite:Deutsche_Sagen_(Grimm)_V1_367.jpg https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Seite:Deutsche_Sagen_(Grimm)_... [1] https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Seite:Deutsche_Sagen_(Grimm)_V1_368.jpg https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Seite:Deutsche_Sagen_(Grimm)_...

dang 1y ago

Discussed at the time (of the article): The grim truth behind the Pied Piper - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24450760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24450760 - Sept 2020 (23 comments)

iammjm 1y ago
So what? Like if something was posted years before should it never be posted ever again? We are talking 5 years here, and the information hasn’t become deprecated or outdated
- CrazyStat 1y ago
  People might be interested to see what was said last time.
- ishouldbework 1y ago
  I do not believe that is dang's point. He often posts comments like these under recurring posts, I assume in hope that the past discussions could also be of interest to the readers.
  - iammjm 1y ago
    I see! my bad
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- mellosouls 1y ago
  Its very normal on HN to point to earlier discussions on the same article or subject and is normally intended as help rather than a complaint.
- dang 1y ago
  Not at all! As the other commenters have pointed out, no criticism is implied. Reposts are fine after a year or so. This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. It's just that readers are often curious to look at past discussions. Sometimes I point that out: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20related%20readers&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....

ekaryotic 1y ago

[flagged]

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

nathias 1y ago

> But most people recognise him for what he is, the Pied Piper incarnate I hope this AI generated

mellosouls 1y ago
2020 so unlikely
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

TMEHpodcast 1y ago

Initially read the headline and thinking it would be about a certain TV show about Silicon Valley. Not disappointed

czbond 1y ago
I recently got into the show "Silicon Valley" after never making it past season 1. Really loving it..... and thought this was the Pied Piper company too.

analog8374 1y ago

It makes you wonder how many modern facts are just a popularized copy of a copy of a copy, mangled beyond all realness.

Ylpertnodi 1y ago
Please leave AI out of this.

neilv 1y ago

Jared gentle deadpan from "Silicon Valley": > Well, I looked it up. It's about a predatory flautist who murders children in a cave. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ70b-WRHlU&t=18s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ70b-WRHlU&t=18s

mmaunder 1y ago

"And, in fact, one 13th Century outbreak – a literal form of dance fever – occurred south of Hamelin, in the town of Erfurt, where a group of youths were documented as wildly gyrating as they travelled out of town, ending up 20km away in a neighbouring town. Some of the children, one chronicle suggests, expired shortly thereafter, having flat-out danced themselves to death, and those who survived were left with chronic tremors. Perhaps, some theorise, Hamelin witnessed a similar plague, dancing to the figurative tune of the Piper." Early discovery of MDMA.

entropicdrifter 1y ago
Could have been ergot fungus in the wheat

yard2010 1y ago

Can we talk about the dance pandemic of 1518? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518 Is this when they invented the Harlem Shake?

senderista 1y ago

> Perhaps the Piper, emblematic of a pagan shaman, playing his flute, was leading the youth of Hamelin to their midsummer festivities when the local Christian faction, hoping to cement conversion of the region, waylaid and massacred the group. This passage doesn't make much sense to me, given that Saxony had been converted around 800 CE. What could "local Christian faction" even mean when everyone was (nominally) Christian?

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

20251105 1y ago

There was an actual pied piper, there were 130 actual children and they really did went missing on June 26, 1284. Landslide or sinkhole in one of the koppen (hills) around Hamelin. The remains of all of those people are probably still there, buried. It is a literal account of a real life tragedy.

hulitu 1y ago

> Ultimately, then, the Piper didn’t just fracture a community. He also, in the end, brought a larger one together. A propaganda phrase that ruins the end of the article.